"RF and microwave technology has provided society with several breakthrough electrical engineering and communication technologies and is continuing to develop rapidly," said professor Vikram Jandhyala, chair of the university's department of electrical engineering, in a prepared statement. "The Agilent Technologies RF Lab will allow our students to gain important hands-on test and design experience that will help prepare them for critical positions in industry."

The FieldFox analyzers included in the collaboration can be configured to do the work of up to 10 instruments in a single unit, according to an Agilent release, and are intended to "enable education labs to optimize their classroom space, share equipment across labs, and perform lecture demonstrations without dragging around a rack of equipment."

Features of the 89600 VSA software include:

Multi-measurement capability, enabling users to create, execute, and display many measurements at the same time;

Support for more than 75 standards and modulation types; and

Application of vector signal analysis virtually anywhere in a block diagram, including analog and digital baseband, IF, RF and microwave, narrowband to ultra-wideband, and SISO and MIMO.

The University of Washington is a multi-campus university in Seattle, Tacoma, and Bothell, as well as an academic medical center. The university boasts 16 colleges and schools offering 1,800 undergraduate courses each quarter and conferring more than 12,000 bachelor's, master's, doctoral, and professional degrees annually.

Agilent Technologies is a measurement equipment company and technology developer in chemical analysis, life sciences, diagnostics, electronics, and communications. The company's 20,500 employees serve customers in more than 100 countries. Agilent had revenues of $6.9 billion in fiscal year 2012.